Personal development involves enhancing your skills to help you progress in life and achieve milestones, such as career advancement. Advancing in your job doesn’t only involve what you do in the workplace, but what you do outside of it too. Personal development offers you several benefits, including pushing you out of your comfort zone and keeping you inspired.
If you desire to grow in your career journey, here are some personal development tips worth considering.
1. Have personal goals
Setting goals is an essential step to guide you in knowing what you want and when you’ll ideally like to achieve it. It will also help you to hold yourself accountable and strive to be your best. Personal objectives will enable you to plan the ways you can develop yourself personally, and the skills you’d like to acquire to help you and your career.
It’s best to write down your long-term goals so you can easily refer to them, remember them, and cross them out when you achieve them. It helps if you break them down into smaller objectives to make them more manageable. Whenever you accomplish these goals, remember to celebrate your little victories and keep going.
2. Identify a mentor
Having a mentor can go a long way in guiding you on your growth journey and motivating you to aspire towards greater things. You can start by finding an expert in your field, or someone who has achieved the feats you greatly admire and is willing to share with you. Being an excellent mentee involves being ready to learn, sacrificing some time, and being curious enough to ask questions. Mentoring can be formal or informal, depending on the person’s availability and what works best for you. If your organisation has Mentoring Software, it will help immensely if you sign up to explore several mentoring opportunities.
3. Read widely
Reading is a great way to broaden your scope and develop yourself personally. Aside from being a great way to pass the time, reading will help you relieve stress, learn from others’ experiences and build your language skills.
Make time to read a book on different areas; from other people’s life stories to literature that is relevant to your field of expertise. Building this habit will go a long way in sharpening your mental skills, even if you do it for a few minutes every day. It could either be a paperback, audiobook, or e-book. As you read, you can take things further by documenting any lessons gained and your thoughts in a journal. This way, you can always refer back to them.
4. Network as much as you can
Networking both in and outside your workplace is essential in your personal development. Doing this will help you foster long-lasting relationships and expose you to any possible job openings relevant to your desired career path. You can network both in-person and online in order to surround yourself with positive and like-minded people.
Platforms such as LinkedIn enable you to connect with professionals in your industry. You can also join groups that consist of diverse people in your field of interest. Building your network will also make it easy for you to get references if the need arises, which could help open great career doors for you. You can challenge yourself by working towards gaining at least ten new connections every year through networking.
5. Appreciate the feedback
Feedback can play a significant role in helping you identify any areas you need to improve on. You can ask your colleagues, managers, and even friends to evaluate you and your character and suggest ways they think you can do better. Feedback or constructive criticism can be difficult to accept but it can also be beneficial. It would help if you made a conscious effort to remember that criticism isn’t necessarily a personal attack, so you shouldn’t take it the wrong way. Having this mindset will boost your can-do spirit and help you know which feedback to take on board to help you grow in your career aspirations. As you welcome feedback, remember to evaluate yourself from time to time to determine where you’ve grown and where you still need to improve.
Advancing in your career starts with taking personal responsibility for your growth. As you apply these tips, remember that personal development is a rewarding journey that takes time. You may make mistakes along the way, but try to be determined and have goals to guide and motivate you.
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